Though HB 1588 failed in the House, it will automatically be reintroduced next year.
The Associated Press

A bill that would have imposed universal background checks for gun sales failed to make it out of the Washington House before Wednesday’s 5 p.m. cutoff for legislation to pass in its house of origin.

House Bill 1588 would expand background checks to private sales, including those at gun shows.

This week, House Democrats spent much of the time in caucus. Rep. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, sponsor of the universal background check bill, spent the week trying to come up with the 50 votes necessary to pass the measure. Despite his efforts, he still came up a few votes short.

"It died rather spectacularly," he said.

But Pedersen doesn't feel he wasted time pushing his bill, because it's critically important, he said.

"Trying to solve gun violence is never wasteful," he said.

Plus, he said the House passed out more than 300 bills before the cutoff.

Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, wasn’t too preoccupied with the bill’s failure. Though House Democrats spent a lot of time behind caucus doors, Stonier felt the House members got a lot done before cutoff. (The last bill to pass in the House was the Washington DREAM Act, which makes children of undocumented immigrants eligible for college financial aid.)

A stall in the Legislature before a deadline is typical, she said, especially when a member is very passionate about their bill. Stonier said the House likely would have stalled on a different bill into if it weren’t for the gun control measure.

“That’s what happens when people care about what they’re doing,” she said.

Rep. Liz Pike, R-Camas, was delighted Democrats spent so much time in caucus. It kept bad bills from being passed, she said.

"I was doing backflips," she said. "It was a good day for Washington businesses."

But Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, was frustrated by the lack of action in the House due to the bill negotiations.

“We lost a day and a half,” he said. “They caucused at least 10 times.”

It made Democrats look dysfunctional, and the long periods of time spent in negotiations took away from time that could have been spent hearing bills, he said.

But Harris said the Democrats hurt themselves more than they hurt Republicans. Because Democrats have the majority in the House, the majority of bills waiting to be heard were sponsored by their party. So most of the bills that didn’t get a hearing in the House were likely Democrat measures.

And Harris felt the negotiations were especially a waste because even if the bill did pass in the House, it doesn’t have a chance in the Republican-controlled Senate.

And unless a referendum is filed to put the issue on the ballot, the bill is dead, at least this year, Harris said.

The only way universal background checks will reenter the arena this year is through an initiative that puts the issue on the November ballot, he said.

At a joint press conference hosted by the Republican leaders and Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Medina, leader of the Majority Coalition Caucus in the Senate, Tom made it clear that if the bill died in the House, it wouldn’t have extra help from him in the Senate.

Tom signed on to the bill and said he strongly supports it, but he said he will not use his power as leader of the coalition to pull a parliamentary procedure to revive the policy through the Senate version of the bill, which never received a hearing in the Senate Law and Justice Committee.

If Tom were to resort to extreme action to bring the bill to the Senate floor, it would likely jeopardize his alliance with Senate Republicans and he could lose his leadership position.